Physical Reference vs Virtual Reference™

Optical interferometer systems are used in applications such as chemical sensing, environmental monitoring, medical imaging, communication testing, and stress analysis.

The Problems with traditional interferometry:
Traditional interferometry is based on a technology that dates from the 19th Century and has not changed significantly in the last 120 years.

In a traditional interferometer light is split into two separate paths: the test path with unknown characteristics and the reference path with well known characteristics (the physical reference path). The light beams are then brought back together to provide information about the characteristics that differentiate the two paths.

The main problem with this old paradigm is that building a good reference is both difficult and expensive. In particular, accuracy in a traditional interferometer is limited by the error introduced when the system is calibrated, and stability is limited since the physical reference path is susceptible to temperature and vibrational disturbances.

Virtual Reference™ Interferometry:
Inometrix's products are based on a breakthrough Virtual Reference™ Interferometer technology. This technology represents a paradigm shift in the way we think about the interferometer and allows us to replaces the physical reference path with a virtual one. This elegant technique has many significant advantages while lowering end user costs.